SCV Tweetup, Fish Tail, Valencia

Early last week, some of us got the idea of trying out the new Dink’s at the mall as a group. Nothing new there, I go out to eat with my friends all the time. Then I started to invite people that I talked to via Twitter and the next thing I knew, this had turned into a Tweetup. However, the opening date for Dink’s kept changing each day. Monday, Tuesday, then Wednesday…it was hard to keep up after a while.

The problem was that most people that I had initially DM’d were able to attend on the date specified, and then my reasoning was, if I had spent all of this time contacting everyone and coordinating times, why cancel just because our original location had not opened in time? I needed a Plan B location, and I needed it ASAP! I called Min, the owner of Fish Tail and asked him if he was able to accommodate about 25 of us, and I only gave him less than 24 hour notice. I think he was surprised, but was definitely willing to host us and even offered to set up the tables for us. Perfect.

So, Wednesday night I stopped to get some name tags, grabbed a couple of grading pens and headed to Fish Tail only to find that I was late to my own Tweetup. Lovely. People were really prompt and before we knew it we had filled up the long table. More than 20+ people showed up on such short notice and I am happy to report that nobody just sat there and acted shy. Everyone interacted, and like I told Lisa, it wasn’t awkward at all. Almost as if we all knew eachother already.

By the way? That following nametag has been hidden somewhere in the SCV. There will be a prize for whoever finds it first…

And I have no idea what happened to the napkin with this cat that Susan had drawn!

Our first ever SCV Tweetup took place in March, 2009 and at that time, there weren’t too many people Tweeting in the SCV. Now, January 2010 we have a really nice group of both people and businesses on Twitter! I know I’m missing some people, but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head:

From what I’ve been hearing, everyone had a really great time. I met a lot of people in person for the first time, and of course saw a lot of familiar faces. Thanks to Fish Tail for taking care of us!

This is the third (or maybe even 4th) Tweetup that I have helped organize here in the SCV. I don’t do it for popularity points and I certainly don’t do it to pretend I’m powerful, because really I don’t like power. Most of you have met me, and some of you are my close friends in real life. The point I’m trying to make is this. I am a person that actually follows you on Twitter, Iinteract with you on Twitter. I follow most local businesses on Twitter and the point of my blog is to support good local businesses, amiright? I don’t just follow celebs and Tweet at them in hopes that they Tweet back. Ifollow you guys, and if we interact so much through Twitter, it only makes sense that we meet in person. That is the point of a Tweetup. It isn’t seeing how many people you can fit in a room. They are SCV centered, focused on our little community up here. It isn’t a numbers game. It is a community game. The focus is purely social, and I think that those of you that have attended any of our Tweetups are aware of that. We have managed to make it become “dinner with friends” instead of some stuffy social mixer.

Having said that…what are you all doing Friday night? 😉 I’m thinking Froyo…

[…] the chattiest SCV people would be coming. I think I’m following up on what I wrote about the last tweetup at Fish Tail. I organize these because we all really genuinely interact with each other almost daily. It only […]